Is this a case for merged indexes?

[Authorgirl]

I write the help for a suite of about 12 software modules. Until now we have always included all modules in our releases but we are about to start offering them as a mix n match arrangement. I use a single index for all modules which is no longer going to make sense.

What is the most sensible way of dealing with this? Should I use conditional build tags (if I can fit any more into my project!) or should I think about converting to individual indexes that can be merged together?

I would really appreciate any thoughts.

[Peter Grainge]

Merged help splits the topics into different projects and you can then give each customer just the help for their modules. You would have to rebuild to tocs, indexes and suchlike. End result though is the customer just gets the help they need.

The other argument is continue to give customers all the help making it clear which topics related to which module. That way they see they cannot do something that would be possible if only they had purchased Module X. So they buy that as well.

CBTs would also do it and the index would only cover what is any output so you only need one index.

There's a bunch of articles on my site covering merged help.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Authorgirl]

We provide a chm file to our customers as well as webhelp. Can I merge projects in HTML help?

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

Indeed CHM files are able to be merged.

Cheers... Rick

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[Peter Grainge]

That too is covered on my site.

Any cross project links will need to be created one way for merged webhelp and a different way for merged CHMs. That means such links need to be created twice and then have CBTs applied.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge